Engaging Students with Active Learning

“Active learning” is a general description for teaching strategies or styles that require students to participate in some way in class. While forms of interaction—such as discussion, dialogue, debate, and group work—are common in small classes, they are less frequently employed in large lecture courses, often simply for logistical reasons.

But to fully engage students in the classroom and compel them to reflect on and apply concepts or information being presented, students need to participate actively in the learning process. Incorporating active learning is for any instructor who wants to:

Some Challenges to Active Learning

As noted above, active learning is a way to deeply engage students in their own learning. But there are some challenges to incorporating it successfully.

First, many students, especially in large lecture classes, are not used to actively participating in class. They may resist the idea of active learning and may even feel as if they aren’t “learning” because they aren’t copying down notes. One way to respond to this reaction from students is to make sure you summarize – or better yet, have a student summarize – how the work they did in class connects to previous homework, reading or lecture material.

Second, active learning is more time-consuming than lecturing. If you are wondering how you will fill a 75-minute or longer class period, active learning may help solve that problem. But many instructors feel just the opposite – that they have a lot of information to cover and not enough class time in which to cover it. Advocates for active learning, however, suggest that just “covering” materials does not ensure that students learn it. They also suggest that, while active learning may require a large initial time investment, students will have a better understanding of what they learn; learning new information will become an easier and quicker process by the end of the semester so that all the material will eventually be taught.